The present invention in its several aspects presented herein is in the area of telephone communication in the broadest sense; that is, including all multimedia communication aspects of intelligent networks, call-center technology including computer-telephony integration (CTI), and Internet protocol telephony networks and related technology.
Telephone is one of the most widely used communication equipments in the world. At first, it was merely a convenient tool to allow people to communicate while they are physically separated. Recently, many companies use telephones to market products and services, provide technical supports to consumer products, allow customers to access their own financial data, etc. Thus, telephone is becoming a major business and marketing tool.
In order to more effectively use telephone for business and marketing purposes, call centers have been developed. In a call center, a large number of agents handle telephone communication with customers. The matching of calls between customers and agents is typically performed by software. A simple example is used here to describe a few of the many advantages of using call centers. When a call is made to a call center, the telephone number of the calling line is typically made available to the call center by a telephone carrier. Based on this telephone number, the software in the call center can access a database server to obtain information about the customer who has been assigned that phone number. The software can now route the call to an agent who can best handle the call based on predefined criteria (e.g., language skill, knowledge of products the customer bought, etc.). The software immediately transfers relevant information to a computer screen used by the agent. Thus, the agent can gain valuable information about the customer prior to receiving the call. As a result, the agent can more effectively handle the telephone transaction.
It can be seen from the above example that the enabling technology requires a combination of telephone switching and computer information processing technologies. The term commonly used for this combined technology is computer-telephony-integration (CTI).
In recent years, advances in computer technology and telephony equipment and infrastructure as well has provided many opportunities for improving telephone service. Similarly, development of the information and data network known as the Internet together with advances in computer hardware and software has led to a new multi-media telephone system known in the art as Internet protocol network telephony (IPNT). Examples of hardware and software used to implement IPNT can be found in the book entitled xe2x80x9cInternet Phone Connectionsxe2x80x9d by Cheryl Kirk, 1st edition published by Mcgraw-Hill on Jan. 15, 1997. Details describing IPNT are known in the art and therefor will not be disclosed in detail in this specification. In IPNT as well as in the older intelligent and CTI-enhanced telephony systems, both privately and publicly switched, it is desirable to handle more calls faster and to provide improved service in every way, including such improvements as video calls and conferencing.
In various embodiments and aspects of the present invention described in enabling detail below, new and enhanced apparatus and methods are provided for improving telephony systems and service.
In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, in an Internet Protocol-capable call center system wherein status of call center objects are monitored and statistics are utilized between multiple software applications in managing call center activity, a method for reporting status of objects is provided, comprising steps of (a) requesting an active state, among multiple possible simultaneous active states, of a call center object by a requesting application; (b) providing a status priority indication by the requesting application; and (c) providing an indication of the active state of the call center object by the reporting application according to the status priority provided by the requesting application. In some embodiments the status indication takes the form of a status priority table with all defined states listed in one of ascending or descending order by priority.
Reporting procedure can take several forms. Requesting applications may, for example, indicate a one-time response is needed or that continuing status updates are needed. Also, the requesting application may report more than one status priority to the reporting application at different times, and the reporting application provides status when requested according to the latest reported status priority by the requesting application. Also, different requesting applications provide unique priority indications, and may change their priority indications at different times. In the absence of a priority indication the reporting application may follow a default priority indications.
In another aspect of the invention an Internet Protocol-capable call center is provided, comprising a managing computer adapted to receive Internet Protocol Network Telephony (IPNT) calls and to distribute the calls to PCs at agent stations connected on a local area network (LAN); a statistics server (stat-server) on the LAN adapted to report current state, among multiple possible states, of call center objects; and one or more requesting applications communicating on the LAN with the stat-server. In this embodiment a requesting application provides a state priority indication to the stat-server and requests a state for an object, and the stat-server in response provides a state for the object according to the priority indication. Two requesting applications may provide unique state priority indications, and as a result are returned different states for the same entity. Also requesting applications may provide different state priority indications at different times, and the stat-server responds to requests according to the latest state priority indication. In the absence of a current status priority indication, the stat-server stores a default state priority indication for each requesting application, and, in the absence of a current state priority indication responds to requests according to the priority indication.
In prior art systems, only one status may be returned for a requesting application, and, as a result, management of a call center is severely limited. In systems of the present invention, the requesting application can indicate the state desired for a request, and management is thus enhanced.